On 13 July, around noon, the lady is said to have entrusted the children with three secrets. Two of the secrets were revealed in 1941 in a document written by Lúcia, at the request of José da Silva, Bishop of Leiria, to assist with the publication of a new edition of a book on Jacinta.[1] When asked by the Bishop of Leiria in 1943 to reveal the third secret, Lúcia struggled for a short period, being "not yet convinced that God had clearly authorized her to act."[2] However, in October 1943 the bishop of Leiria ordered her to put it in writing.[3] Lucia then wrote the secret down and sealed it in an envelope not to be opened until 1960, when "it will appear clearer."[4] The text of the third secret was officially released by Pope John Paul II in 2000, although some claim that it was not the real secret revealed by Lucia, despite assertions from the Vatican to the contrary.

Contents

First secret

Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent. This vision lasted but an instant. How can we ever be grateful enough to our kind heavenly Mother, who had already prepared us by promising, in the first Apparition, to take us to heaven. Otherwise, I think we would have died of fear and terror.[5]

Second secret

The second secret is a statement that World War I would end and supposedly predicts the coming of World War II should God continue to be offended and if Russia does not convert. The second half requests that Russia be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart:

You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go. To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The war is going to end: but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the Pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light*, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father. To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred; the Holy Father will have much to suffer; various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me, and she shall be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world.[6]

This secret's controversy is second only to the supposed final secret of Fátima, as it seemingly predicts both the all-encompassing World War II, the radical, bloody, and extreme anti-religion ideology of the Soviet Union; the proxy wars and limited direct confrontations that would be initiated between the Western Democracies and the Soviet Bloc.

Some critics have noted that the "Prophecy" was not disclosed until August 1941, after World War II had already begun.[7] To put this in context, Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, began on 22 June 1941. This means that by the time the secret was revealed, all the events it 'predicts' had already occurred. The secret also singles out the Soviet Union while ignoring Hitler and the Nazis.

Third secret

The third part of the secret was written down "by order of His Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and the Most Holy Mother ..." on 3 January 1944.[9] Bishop Silva, visiting Lúcia on 15 September 1943 while she was bed-ridden, first suggested that she write the third secret down to ensure that it would be recorded in the event of her death. Lucia was hesitant to do so, however. Finally, in mid-October, Bishop Silva sent her a letter containing a direct order to record the secret, and Lúcia obeyed. In June 1944, the sealed envelope containing the third secret was delivered to Silva, where it stayed until 1957, when it was finally delivered to Rome.[10]

It was announced by Cardinal Sodano on 13 May 2000, 83 years after the first apparition of the Lady to the children in the Cova da Iria, that the Third Secret would finally be released. In his announcement, Cardinal Sodano implied that the secret was about the persecution of Christians in the 20th century that culminated in the failed assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on 13 May 1981.[11]

The text of the Third Secret was published on 26 June 2000:

J.M.J.

The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fátima, on 13 July 1917.

I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.

After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: ‘something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White 'we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

"A careful reading of the text of the so-called third 'secret' of Fatima ... will probably prove disappointing or surprising after all the speculation it has stirred. No great mystery is revealed; nor is the future unveiled."

After explaining the differences between public and private revelations, he cautions people not to see in the message a determined future event:

"The purpose of the vision is not to show a film of an irrevocably fixed future. Its meaning is exactly the opposite: it is meant to mobilize the forces of change in the right direction. Therefore we must totally discount fatalistic explanations of the “secret”, such as, for example, the claim that the would-be assassin of 13 May 1981 was merely an instrument of the divine plan guided by Providence and could not therefore have acted freely, or other similar ideas in circulation. Rather, the vision speaks of dangers and how we might be saved from them."

He then moves on to talk about the symbolic nature of the images, noting that:

"The concluding part of the 'secret' uses images which Lucia may have seen in devotional books and which draw their inspiration from long-standing intuitions of faith."

As for the meaning of the message:

"What remains was already evident when we began our reflections on the text of the 'secret': the exhortation to prayer as the path of 'salvation for souls' and, likewise, the summons to penance and conversion."

Third Secret controversy

The Vatican withheld the Third Secret until 26 June 2000, despite Lúcia's declaration that it could be released to the public after 1960. Some sources, including Canon Barthas and Cardinal Ottaviani, said that Lúcia insisted to them it must be released by 1960, saying that, "by that time, it will be more clearly understood", and, "because the Blessed Virgin wishes it so."[14][15] When 1960 arrived, rather than releasing the Third Secret, the Vatican published an official press release stating that it was "most probable the Secret would remain, forever, under absolute seal."[16] After this announcement, immense speculation over the content of the secret materialized. According to the New York Times, speculation over the content of the secret ranged from "worldwide nuclear annihilation to deep rifts in the Roman Catholic Church that lead to rival papacies."[17]

Some sources claim that the four-page, handwritten text[9] of the Third Secret released by the Vatican in the year 2000 is not the real secret, or at least not the full secret.[18][19][20][21] In particular, it is alleged that Cardinals Bertone, Ratzinger and Sodano engaged in a systematic deception to cover up the existence of a one-page document containing the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which some believe contains information about the Apocalypse and a great apostasy. These sources contend that the Third Secret is actually composed of two texts, where one of these texts is the published four-page vision, and the other is a single-page letter allegedly containing the words of the Virgin Mary which has been concealed.[18][19][20]

Critics disputing that the full Third Secret has been released argue there's proof that the Third Secret:

was written on one sheet of paper rather than four sheets;

was written in the form of a signed letter to the Bishop of Leiria;

contains words attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary;

contains information about the Apocalypse, a great apostasy, and Satanic infiltration of the Catholic Church.

Written on one sheet of paper: The text of the Third Secret released by the Vatican is handwritten on four sheets of paper.[9] Multiple clerics claiming familiarity with the authentic text have stated that the Third Secret was written on a single sheet of paper rather than four sheets.[22] For example, Father Joaquin Alonso, official Fatima archivist for sixteen years, reports in his book that, "Lucy tells us that she wrote it on a sheet of paper. Cardinal Ottaviani, who has read it, tells us the same thing: 'She wrote it on a sheet of paper' ...".[23] In addition, Bishop Venancio, who was entrusted to transport the envelope containing the Third Secret to a Vatican representative after Lucy wrote it down, is reported to have held the envelope up to a light and noted that the Third Secret was "written on a small sheet of paper." [24][25] Bishop Venancio also measured the dimensions of the paper, the size of its margins, and estimated there to be 20-25 lines of text.[26] Also, Father Malachi Martin stated that he was shown the text of the Third Secret in February, 1960.[27] On a syndicated radio broadcast, Fr. Martin indicated that the Third Secret was written on "one sheet of paper."[27] In a taped interview, Fr. Charles Fiore quoted Fr. Malachi Martin as saying the following regarding the text of the Third Secret: "I cooled my heels in the corridor outside the Holy
Father's apartments, while my boss, Cardinal Bea, was inside debating with the Holy Father, and with a group of other bishops and priests, and two young Portuguese seminarians, who translated the letter, a single page, written in Portuguese, for all those in the room."[28]

Written in the form of a letter: Another reason why critics argue the full Third Secret has not been released is because of documented evidence that the Third Secret was written in the form of a signed letter to the Bishop of Leiria. The text of the Third Secret released by the Vatican is not written in the form of a letter.[9] Lucia was interviewed by Father Jongen on 3 February 1946.[15][29] When Fr. Jongen asked Lucia when the time would arrive for the Third Secret, Lucia responded, "I communicated the third part in a letter to the Bishop of Leiria." Also, Canon Galamba, an advisor to the Bishop of Leiria, is quoted as saying, "When the bishop refused to open the letter, Lucy made him promise that it would definitely be opened and read to the world either at her death or in 1960, whichever came first."[15][30] Also, the Vatican press release from 1960 announcing that the Third Secret would probably never be revealed was written with the following words: "... it is most likely that the letter will never be opened, in which Sister Lucy wrote down the words which Our Lady confided as a secret to the three shepherds of the Cova da Iria."[31]

Contains words attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary: The text of the Third Secret released by the Vatican contains no words attributed to the Blessed Virgin Mary.[9] According to the 1960 Vatican press release on the Third Secret cited above, "Sister Lucy wrote down the words which Our Lady confided as a secret ...".[31] Some sources assert that the Third Secret most likely begins with the words, "In Portugal the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved etc", words which Lucia included in her Fourth Memoir, but which are included only as a footnote to the text released by the Vatican.[32] In addition, evidence shows that Fr. Joseph Schweigl was sent by Pope Pius XII to interrogate Lucia about the Third Secret on 2 September 1952.[33][34] The day after the interview, Fr. Schweigl is reported to have stated the following: "I cannot reveal anything of what I learned at Fatima concerning the Third Secret, but I can say that it has two parts: one concerns the Pope; the other logically (although I must say nothing) would have to be the continuation of the words: ‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved’."[33][34]

File:Cardinal Ratzinger7R.jpgContains information about the Apocalypse, a great apostasy, and Satanic infiltration of the Catholic Church: According to Cardinal Ratzinger in the commentary accompanying the text[9] of the Third Secret released by the Vatican, "Those who expected exciting apocalyptic revelations about the end of the world or the future course of history are bound to be disappointed. Fatima does not satisfy our curiosity in this way ...".[9] Some critics see this as contradicting a considerable amount of evidence in the record, including previous testimony by Cardinal Ratzinger himself.[20][35][36] In an interview published in the 11 November 1984 edition of Jesus Magazine, Cardinal Ratzinger was asked whether he had read the text of the Third Secret and why it had not been revealed.[37][38] Ratzinger acknowledged that he had read the Third Secret, and stated in part that the Third Secret involves the "importance of the novissimi"(end times), and "dangers threatening the faith and the life of the Christian and therefore (the life) of the world." Ratzinger also commented that, "If it is not made public - at least for the time being - it is in order to prevent religious prophecy from being mistaken for a quest for the sensational."[38] Also, a news article quoted former Philippine ambassador to the Vatican, Howard Dee, as saying that Cardinal Ratzinger had personally confirmed to him that the messages of Akita and Fatima are "essentially the same."[39] The Akita prophecy, in part, contains the following: "The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate Me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres … churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord."[40][41]File:Malachimartin photo.jpg

Father Charles Fiore, in a taped interview, made the following remarks with regard to Cardinal Ratzinger's various statements about the Third Secret: "We have two different Cardinal Ratzingers; we have two different messages. But Malachi [Martin] was consistent all the way through; he believed that the Third Secret of Fatima had to do [...] with the internal problems of the Catholic Church."[28] On a syndicated radio broadcast, Father Malachi Martin was asked the following question by a caller: "I had a Jesuit priest tell me more of the Third Secret of Fatima years ago, in Perth. He said, among other things, the last pope would be under control of Satan... Any comment on that?" Fr. Martin responded, "Yes, it sounds as if they were reading, or being told, the text of the Third Secret. But it's sufficiently vague to make one hesitate— it sounds like it."[27] In a taped interview with Bernard Janzen, Fr. Martin was asked the following question: "Who are the people who are working so hard to suppress Fatima?" Fr. Martin responded, "A bunch, a whole bunch, of Catholic prelates in Rome, who belong to Satan. They're servants of Satan. And the servants of Satan outside the Church, in various organizations; they want to destroy the Catholicism of the Church, and keep it as a stabilizing factor in human affairs. It's an alliance. A dirty alliance, a filthy alliance, but a very good alliance."[43] In the same interview, Fr. Martin also said with respect to Lucia that, "They've (The Vatican) published forged letters in her name; they've made her say things she didn't want to say. They put statements on her lips she never made."

On 13 May 2000, Cardinal Sodano announced that the Third Secret would be released, during which he implied the secret was about the persecution of Christians in the 20th century that culminated in the failed assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II on 13 May 1981.[11] On this day in Fatima, Pope John Paul II said in his homily that, "The message of Fatima is a call to conversion, alerting humanity to have nothing to do with the 'dragon' whose 'tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth'."[44] The statement was a reference to Apocalypse 12:3-4 (Book of Revelation). According to Fr. Paul Kramer, who points to this as incontrovertible proof that the Third Secret contains information about the Apocalypse, "This passage has been classically interpreted in Catholic commentaries to mean that one-third of the clergy—i.e. Cardinals, bishops, priests—fall from their consecrated state and are actually working for the devil", and are thus "working to destroy the Church from within."[45] In a published interview, Lucia is quoted as telling Fr. Fuentes, "The devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation drag numerous souls to hell."[46] A "falling away" from the faith is an apostasy. Cardinal Ciappi, personal theologian to Pope John Paul II, is quoted by sources as saying, "In the Third Secret it is foretold, among other things, that the great apostasy in the Church will begin at the top."[47] According to the Bible, a great apostasy is predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, and precedes the advent of Antichrist.[48][49] In addition, on a syndicated radio broadcast, Fr. Malachi Martin stated that the Third Secret "doesn't make any sense unless we accept that there will be, or that there is in progress, a wholesale apostasy amongst clerics, and laity in the Catholic Church ...".[50]

Lucia herself is reported to have explicitly stated that the Third Secret contains Apocalyptic content. According to one source, when Lucia was asked about the Third Secret, she said it was "in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse", and at one point she had even specified Apocalypse chapters 8 to 13, a range that includes Apocalypse 12:4, the chapter and verse cited by Pope John Paul II in his homily in Fatima on 13 May 2000.[51]

Cardinal Bertone's response to criticism

The Vatican has maintained its position that the full text of the Third Secret was published in June 2000. A report from the Zenit Daily Dispatch dated 20 December 2001, based on a Vatican press release, claimed that Lucia told then Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, in an interview conducted the previous month, that the secret has been completely revealed and published, and that no secrets remain.[52] Bertone, along with Cardinal Ratzinger, co-authored the The Message of Fatima[9], the document published in June 2000 by the Vatican that allegedly contains a scanned copy of the original text of the Third Secret.

Cardinal Bertone

Bertone, who was elevated to Cardinal in 2003 and currently holds the position of Vatican Secretary of State, wrote a book titled, The Last Secret of Fatima, published first in Italian under a different title in 2007, and then subsequently in English.[53] The book contains a transcribed interview between journalist Giuseppe De Carli and Bertone in which Bertone responds to various criticisms and accusations regarding the content and disclosure of the Third Secret. At one point in the interview, De Carli comments on an unsourced accusation that the Vatican is concealing a one-page text of the Third Secret which predicts a great apostasy where Rome will "lose the faith and become the throne of the Antichrist." Bertone responds as follows:

"That's absolutely crazy. Look, are you claiming that the prophecy of Fatima is about the apostasy of the Church of Rome? That Fatima is a prediction of Rome's transformation into the throne of the Antichrist? Despite the love Our Lady has for the pope and the popes for Our Lady? ...Anyone can write books based on conspiracy theories, on biased interpretations. Anybody can take sentences out of context and present them as clues to some supposed plot to avoid divulging the truth and to transmit it in a code that only the initiates can understand. No, the whole theory you allude to is a fabrication. And this supposedly factual account [...], is actually the sort of device the Masons used to invent to discredit the Church. I'm surprised that journalists and writers who claim to be Catholic let themselves be taken in."[54]

At another point in the interview, De Carli mentions that Cardinal Ottaviani had once stated that the Third Secret was written on a single sheet of paper. He also mentions that one of Lucia's memoirs contains the words, "In Portugal, the dogma of the faith will always be preserved etc", words which some believe introduce the real Third Secret. After the interviewer interjects his own opinion and calls these observations "feeble bits of evidence that neither prove nor disprove anything", he asks Cardinal Bertone about the possibility of there being two texts, where the "first document" contains the words of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the other contains the description of the vision published by the Vatican. Bertone answers in part, "There is no first document. There never was any such text in the archives of the Holy Office." Bertone also says, "So I'm not sure what Cardinal Ottaviani was talking about." Bertone also states that, "[W]e have the word, better, the official confirmation of Sr. Lucia: 'Is this the Third Secret, and is this the only text of it?' 'Yes, this is the Third Secret, and I never wrote any other'."[55]

Later on in the interview, Bertone again addresses the question as to whether a text exists with words attributed to the Blessed Virgin that was censored: "The part of the text where the Virgin speaks in the first person wasn't censored, for the simple reason that it never existed. ...I'm basing my statement on Sister Lucia's own direct confirmation that the Third Secret is none other than the text that was published in the year 2000."[56]

Continuing criticism and controversy

Cardinal Bertone has been accused of lying about the content of the Third Secret in his book, The Last Secret of Fatima,[53] and also in televised appearances.[19][57] After Bertone's book was published, Italian journalist Antonio Socci published an article titled Dear Cardinal Bertone: Who—between you and me—is Deliberately Lying?[57] Catholic attorney Christopher Ferrara wrote an entire book called The Secret Still Hidden (content available online) aimed at exposing and debunking the claims of Cardinal Bertone with respect to Fatima.[19] The book contains an appendix entitled 101 Grounds for Doubting Cardinal Bertone's Account. For example, Ferrara asserts that Bertone has given at least five different versions of Lucia's alleged acceptance of the interpretation of the vision published by the Vatican in 2000.[58]

An article published in Catholic World News on 27 September 2007 reports that Italian journalists Antonio Socci and Solideo Paolini "produced a tape recording in which Archbishop Loris Capovilla, who once served as private secretary to Pope John XXIII, revealed that there were two texts of the Third Secret."[59] An article dated just two weeks earlier quotes Archbishop Capovilla as saying, "There are not two truths from Fatima and nor is there any fourth secret. The text which I read in 1959 is the same that was distributed by the Vatican." Capovilla is also quoted as saying, "I have had enough of these conspiracy theories. It just isn't true. I read it, I presented it to the Pope and we resealed the envelope."[60]

↑Martin, Malachi (1998). Windswept House. Main Street Books.Note: Although Windswept House is classified as fiction, it is a special type known as roman à clef, meaning that the fiction is really a facade and the book is fact-based (but written to read like fiction). Martin said that most of the characters are real people and 85% of the events are real. It is available at Amazon.